USD 1.9 mln Investment at Vega Ploiesti Refinery to Increase Energy Efficiency

Rompetrol Rafinare, a member company of KMG International, will upgrade, in the near future, the central heating system from Vega refinery in Ploiesti, in order to increase energy efficiency and continue to reduce the impact of its activities on the environment.

The investment effort for this project amounts to more than 1.9 million dollars and includes, among other things, the installation of a new steam-boiler, manufactured in line with the highest standards, purchased at the end of last year.

“The implementation of new projects within the Vega refinery is one of Rompetrol Rafinare’s priorities. In recent years, the Ploiesti unit has witnessed an important operational growth that motivates us to go further and continue to drive the refinery on an upward road. Installing the steam boiler will help us streamline our production processes, but, very importantly, to have the lowest impact on the environment. Our goal for the next years is to increase the energy efficiency of Vega Ploiesti close to the maximum yield,” says Yedil Utekov, General Director of Rompetrol Rafinare.

The steam boiler that is an ignitubular type boiler with two special fire tubes, was designed with three combustion gas routes, the optimal size of the furnace providing a complete combustion and implicitly low air volume. The process of combustion of natural gas will be achieved by fuel grading and internal recirculation of combustion gases, resulting in a low level of nitrogen oxides (NOx).

With a weight of about 60 tons, 8.9 meters long, 4.3 meters wide and 4.4 meters high, the new boiler can produce a nominal flow rate of 40 t/h of steam at rated pressure of 15 bar and a nominal temperature of 280 degrees Celsius. The part was recently delivered to the Vega refinery, which was designed, produced and tested according to the international PED 201/68/EU standard.

The objectives of this project are mainly to improve the energy efficiency of the refinery by increasing the yield from 91% currently, to about 96%, and reducing the emissions resulting from the steam production process, in accordance with the provisions of the integrated environmental permit and the legislation in force.

For this year, Vega Ploiesti has proposed an investment budget of 8.8 million dollars, out of which 4.2 million will be allocated to projects optimizing and automating raw material supply, storage and production of petroleum products.

At the same time, a total budget of approximately 10 million dollars will be allocated for compliance projects with a direct impact on reducing the refinery’s footprint on neighborhoods and the environment. These include the fitting of caps/floating membranes to a number of 4 tanks (a solution that does not allow the formation of vapors above the oil product), vapor recovery systems at car and railway loading points, the acquisition of an incinerator at the bitumen plant and replacing the furnace from the Vacuum Distillation plant.

The Vega Refinery from Ploiesti, the only domestic bitumen and hexane producer, works in perfect synergy with Petromidia Navodari refinery, which provides raw materials/semi-finished products to obtain products and special solutions.

Last year, Vega obtained eight operational records, including raw material processed (406,000 tons), bitumen production (over 100,000 tons), or hexane production (84,500 tons).